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Bullock again proves himself ignorant and incompetent to hold an office representing the people of Montana. Twenty states have “Constitutional Carry” – that is, no law against carrying weapons regardless of whether your coat falls over it or not. There are absolutely no related problems in any of them. With a strong, knowledgeable gun culture, Montana is no more at risk than any of them, particularly including the most recent addition to that list, New Hampshire. Both houses of the state legislature agreed. King Bull* disagreed. His second idiotic move Thursday was vetoing legal carry into Montana Post Offices. Over a decade ago a couple of US Postal Service employees “went postal” and shot some co-workers. From postal service […]

In the all important metric of campaign dollars spent for every vote earned, I seriously kicked butt! Dunlap $0.07 per vote Bullock $12.98 per vote Gianforte $33.49 per vote. Greg spent $7,271,672 to win 220,142 votes. Steve spent $3,014,517 to win 232,316 votes. I spent $1,085 to win 15,649 votes. . In another important area, I landed in the company of the largest group this election. As you can see in the chart to the left, far more adults in Montana did not vote for either the Republican or the Democrat candidate for governor. Of the 902,797 Montanans 18 and over, 450,339 did not vote for Greg or Steve. See how popular that option was. In round numbers, that […]

It was a few of the incumbent governor vetoes that inspired me to run for governor. How could anyone be that antagonistic to the people of Montana and still get elected? Here are some that your governor should have supported, endorsed, aided and signed. But the elitist in that Helena chair prevented them from becoming law. (By the way, campaign strategists teach that we should never mention our competition’s name; that we should not contribute to their name recognition. You will notice that other than in quotations I followed that advice in this article.) Campus concealed carry bill HB 240, introduced by Rep. Cary Smith (R-Billings), would have allowed licensed concealed-carry permit holders — who must pass a background check […]

Imagine trying to run a grocery store, auto shop or dentist office where legislation limited you to serving THREE customers. That is what the legislature and governor did to medical cannabis in Montana. Mind you, this is a substance used by humans for over a thousand years with zero deaths, quite unlike legal pharmaceuticals with very short histories and thousands of deaths every year. In Montana, possession of even a single joint for non-medical purposes can land a person in jail for six months, while possession of 60 grams or more (a little over two ounces) can result in a sentence of up to five years. These stiff marijuana penalties cause related negative consequences. In 2012, there were 1,502 arrests […]

1. What will be your top three priorities as governor? 2. The Legislative Fiscal Division is warning that revenues are coming in below projections, causing concern for Fiscal Year 2017. The state budget office is much more optimistic. Who do you believe and why? 3. Is it time for Montana to consider steady streams of revenue such as a sales tax? Why or why not? 4. Is infrastructure still a top priority in the next legislative session? What are your plans for the issue? 5. Do you support Medicaid expansion? If you do is it worth the cost? If you don’t, what is your message to the Montanans who have signed up? 6. Do you support efforts being made […]

Led by the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry, enemies of the valuable cannabis plant have kept it expensive in both money and risk to individual liberty for over 50 years. A plant that costs no more to grow than basil or oregano sells for 100 times what those non-prohibited herbs do. The worst part of this irrational war are the many costs to our society. Topping the list is our awful incarceration rate. A close second is that 99 dollars of the product cost goes to organized crime… with huge negative implications for liberty of all, even those not involved in either side of cannabis transactions. The United States is home to less than 5 percent of the world’s population but nearly […]

College political science courses are a good starting point for learning about the process. But as anyone with 10 years or more in any field will tell you, what they learned in the real world turned out quite differently from what they learned in school. In politics, the academics still explain election results while the voting public still believes those to be irrefutable facts. My experience has been different from theirs. First, their view of, for a relevant example, Montana’s 2012 gubernatorial race. The Democrat received 236,450 votes The Republican received 228,879 votes The Libertarian received 18,160 votes. The fascinating, to me, academic conclusion is that the Libertarian gave the election to the Democrats. That had it not been for […]

Ravalli Republic reporter Perry Backus visited with me for an hour and a half last Thursday. It was a pleasant, amiable conversation. I felt good about him and trusted his integrity to treat my candidacy fairly. I was right. Towards the end of our chat, Perry suggested I show him “my thinking rock” where he did the clickity-clickity-click-click thing with his full-pro camera. With dozens of photos to choose from, he surely could have caught me looking worse than average. But the photo he published is very nice. The article he wrote, published in over half a dozen syndicated newspapers in Montana, also treats me kindly and respectfully. I really appreciate that … and respect Perry for it. He […]

selected quotations

How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.

— Suzanna Gratia Hupp (1959-) Texas State Representative (R), survivor of ‘Luby’s Massacre’ where both her parents were among 23 people fatally shot and 50 others wounded